Suffer Well
by Grasping At Straws
Summary: Everything within the city's border was dead. Even, he would admit to none but himself, him.'
1. Sinner

**Disclaimers: I don't own Lex Luthor or Smallville nor Metropolis, for that matter.**

**A/N: **Lex is roughly nineteen years old in the particular piece of fiction and living in Metropolis. I sort of got mixed up with the time lines, since everything happens in the early morning. When I said Thrusday Novemeber 18, it's actually Friday the 19th. So on and so forth. Excuse the error.

**

* * *

**

**SATURDAY NOVEMBER 20th **

**1:00 AM **

The moon was still vibrant against the layers of night and its ominous clouds. The glacial winds cut through his skin and settled deep within his worn bones. His fitted jacket barely retained and contained what little heat he possessed; with hands buried deep within pockets, he made his way into the night despite protests from those seemingly "caring" people.

Her voice still echoed within his head: a mantra for the lingering. It haunted him in his inner most sanctuary. For each step he took, the shrill sound of her voice increased ten folds. A loitering spirit grasping as evil clung onto his soul. Dirtying his hands with tainted blood he never dreamt of spilling. Yet, he denied any conduct that may pertain to the incident. It wasn't his fault.

It wasn't _his_ fault.

Or so he continued to tell himself. But even he didn't believe it. If hadn't, if he had just--what was the point anymore? What's done has been done and there was absolutely nothing that could possibly change that fact that she had died in his hands.

He could still feel her frail body against him. He could vividly recall her trembles, her whispers of death and her fear of what was over the "horizon"; the faith of which people so finely believed in lost in the mist of terror and horror. It fell meaningless and everything ever preached to them was long forgotten as life easily dripped like blood from within his grasp.

The air was cold and stung his lungs as he took in a deep breathe and exhaled. Lex rubbed at his red shot eyes which were beginning to become irritating. He gazed upward at the moon as he passed beneath the neatly trimmed trees of the dead city.

Dead.

Everything within the city's border seemed dead. Even, he would admit, himself.

His soul.

Their souls.

Tainted.

Contaminated.

They were there. All of them. Taylor and Mike; they watched as their beloved sister fell lifeless into his arms. And he knew, just as they did, that it was his fault.

* * *

**THRUSDAY NOVEMBER 18**

**2:25 AM**

"You've been sleeping with her! How could you possibly do that to me!"

He blinked at his unnecessary out burst. Though, he figured it would be better if he allowed the two siblings to lay their emotions down on the table, for all to see. To see their weakness.

Lex casually stuck his hands into the pockets of his wool coat. Gestured with his narrow eye brows and then watched the two siblings intently. Yes, he had been sleeping with their older sister. He would not deny it. It wasn't anything he was ashamed of but apparently, the two siblings did not like the idea.

"Personally, I don't see what--"

"What are you doing here!"

He was interrupted. Lex Luthor did not like to be interrupted in the process of stating something.

"What are we doing here?" Mike, apparently feeling the need to hear himself speak, repeated. Julia nodded. "I'll tell you what we're doing here. You..." his voice shook. "You, Julia, are taken by a man who loves you ever much. But not only are you taken, you're engaged. You're _engaged_. Do you understand what it god damn means to be engaged, Julia?"

Lex slowly looked to the older woman. He had no idea she had been engaged. Three years older than he was, he never considered it. But hell, it wasn't his position to ask as much as it was her responsibility to tell him. For God's sake! He allowed his gaze to linger a bit longer before looking back to Mike.

"Don't insult my intelligence-"

"Julia?" A new voice rung out. Both Julia and Lex turned around.

It was if time stopped for a moment. As if to present to the Lord what sin had been committed, as if to allow these people who stood in the cold autumn weather to acknowledge what had been done.

"That's him? That's the man, no, _boy_ you've been sleeping with? Oh, don't look so God damn surprised, Julia. You think I wouldn't find out?"

"Jimmy, it wasn't like that," Julia pleaded. Lex remained silent.

"How could you?" Jimmy's hand was dug deep into his jacket pocket. This, however, went unnoticed. "It _was_ like that and we all know it. You!" He now turned to Lex. "You! It's your entire fault."

"I didn't know she was engaged to you," Lex replied. "I didn't know she was engaged at--"

"Shut up!" Jimmy's hand shot out from his pocket and the young Luthor found himself staring down a gun barrel. "You knew, don't try to play stupid with me, _Luthor_."

Lex remained unfazed. Simply stared calmly at gun point.

"If that's the case, then please be my guest and fucking shoot me, Jimmy. Save the world a lot of grief, will you?" The young boy muttered to him.

Warm tears ran down her pale chick as she watched the two men she loved.

"Jimmy, please," she tried once more.

"Shut up!" he merely bellowed at her.

"Don't you dare yell at her!" Lex shouted at him.

The gun began to shake in his hand: unsteady, he pulled the trigger. Luthor closed his eyes preparing for the bullet to enter through his chest and eliminate him from this frozen over Hell hole.

But no...

It never came. The anticipated pain never filled his body nor did overcoming warmth but a dread wept over his body as he slowly began to open his eyes. However, he knew what had happened before his cold blue eyes settled upon the scene...

* * *

**SATURDAY NOVEMBER 20th**

**1:50 AM**

The bright neon lights of various clubs buried deep within the city beckoned him. Called to him with temptations he could not resist any longer. With nothing to stop him, he easily entered the club.

He could feel the rough quick moving bodies against him. They followed the beat of the music as their minds focused solely upon matters that did not cease to stop them at their current attempt: To forget the hardships of life. The multicolored lights hit upon him engulfing them in a foreign color. Life disappeared within the beat of the music, thoughts were traded in for less painful ambitions, and people were simply people.

No one choose to acknowledge your problems simply because it didn't matter. Nothing mattered once you crossed through the threshold of the enclosure. Anything that truly clicked within the mind was another drink, another hit, or another song. The spectrum of human emotions was devoid of any importance.

His piercing glacial eyes caught sight of something familiar. It bobbed within the sea of moving bodies. It called to him, however. Entranced, he began to move towards it.

* * *

"If I could just hide - The sinner inside - And keep him denied - How sweet life would be- if I could be free - from the sinner in me"

Depeche Mode


	2. Damaged People

**Disclaimers: **Nothing's changed. I don't own Smallville, Lex Luthor, or Metropolis.

**A/N: **Again the time line is a little mixedup. Still set in early, early morning of Friday (19th)and Sunday (21).

* * *

**THRUSDAY 18th  
3:05 AM**

Her youthful body fell into his arms; he stumbled for a moment before retaining his composure. Blood looked pitch black beneath the darkness of night, he never truly realized it till now.

It was warm as it soaked into his jacket and shirt. He sank with her to the cold ground. His young hands filled with the pure and innocent substance.

His fault...

_My _fault...

Lex bit his lip and shook his head gently looking down into her eyes. The once bright lively spark within her penetrating green eyes began to fade. He gulped running his hand through her brown silky hair.  
She looked up at him, her breathing slow and shallow. Lex gulped back tears; he could faintly hear erratic voices in the background. Screaming at one another and screaming at him.

"Julia," he whispered to her. He sniffed at the cold air and placed his hand gently upon her cheek. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

He smiled tenderly at him; light tears ran down her cold cheeks. "It's," she struggled for a breath of air. "Okay."

"Shh," he said softly to her. Holding her head against him, he bent over her, holding her even tighter. ; As though if he were to let her go, if even just for a moment, she would fade into the night. "God, I'm sorry, Julia, I'm sorry."

Julia gasped within his grasp and took one last strained breathe before leaving him.

"No," he muttered against her head. "God, no..."

* * *

**SATURDAY 20th  
2:00AM**

It beckoned him onward through the sea of human perfection that danced beneath the stream of multi-colored lights. The fast paced music sped up the movement and flow of the people as he proceeded through them.

But they moved for him. As though he were some sort of god gracing the room with his presence as they parted for him. Moved to allow him entrance. And there it was.

There she was. As though she had never fallen prey to such a fate. Good as she had been just the day before.

A smile graced his features and a welcoming warmness settled into his bones. He felt her presence absorbed him, consumed that emptiness that had consumed him the minute she had gasped her last breathe of air.

"Lex," she mouthed to him through the music. She smiled welcomingly and held out her hand for him.

He grasped it eagerly and together they danced to the music. Their bodies moving in rhymed with one another. He ran his hand down the side of her body and she clasped her hand around his neck, her head resting against his chest as they moved.

"Julia," Lex said as the music ended. "How?"

Was this real? Or yet a hallucination?

"Shh," she whispered into his ear. "Its okay, Lex. I'm here."

There was something different to her touch that he could not place, but she took his hand and led him through the crowd and towards the back rooms.

* * *

**THRUSDAY NOVEMBER 18th  
3:06AM**

Jimmy's hand dropped to his side and realization of just what he had done. In the process of shooting his enemy, his nemesis, he had shot the one person he loved.

"Shit," he whispered; his breathe lingered into the cold night's air. He fell to his knees. "God, no, what have I done? What have I done?"

He looked at the gun still in his hand and immediately let go of it as though it had burned his hand. Jimmy slowly looked over towards the Luthor boy who held his beloved.

"No," he heard the boy whisper. "God, no..."

He vaguely heard Mike and Taylor yelling at him, threatening him, and screaming at his idiocy. No, he heard neither their words nor their mourning, but he did hear sirens in the distance.

Grabbing the gun and rising to his feet, he vowed to avenge his Beloved's death.

Lex slowly looked up from Julia's body and gazed directly at him.

"Run," his voice was rough. "Run before I kill you."

* * *

"Come, Lex," Julia led him into the dimly lit back rooms and gently pushed him onto the cushions of the couches. 

Her voice. Her touch. They were not what he remembered...

* * *

"When I feel the warmth - Of your very soul - I forget I'm cold - And crying - When your lips touch mine - And I lose control - I forget I'm old - And dying." 

Depeche Mode


End file.
